The Fall and Rise of the Max
by Dr. Barnwell
Summary: Max redeems himself and his restaurant.


Max sat at his desk, a tiny little thing crammed in the back of the Max's kitchen between the tomato sauce and the mayonnaise tubs. He held his head and groaned. Groaning seemed to be the only thing he was capable of. Nearby, the dishwasher gurgled and a stupefied kitchen grunt sat waiting next to the microwave as it nuked a plate of chili cheese fries.

Max stared at the stack of bills before him. It was at least eight inches high. Unpayable. Every one of them. On top of them all sat the death warrant, the last call, the end of the end: A letter at the top of which, in large red letters, blared: "TERMINATION OF LEASE." That was it. Mr. Nikolopoulos, the landlord, had delivered it personally the day before. He hadn't sent it through the mail. "Want to save stamp," he said, grinning sheepishly. He looked like he felt guilty. Max couldn't blame him. It wasn't his fault.

It wasn't anyone's fault, seemingly. Max was just out of business. That was it. The cash flow that had once been so abundant had dried up in the past few months. He suddenly found himself post-dating checks, floating them later and later, firing first the busboy then the short-order cook and finally half the waitstaff. He couldn't make sense of it. There was no money. There was just no money.

It hadn't always been that way. When he'd opened his doors in 1983, business had been booming, and it had always boomed. Even on weekday lunches he was regularly filled up, with both local professionals and students from the nearby consolidated high school, Bayside. On weekends the place was jumping like an old soda shop from the 1950s, which, coincidentally, was how Max had designed the place. After four years in business he had bought a small old sloop for Sunday afternoons at Will Rogers beach; after another year he bought a new Buick Skylark—with cash. Business was good.

Then, all of the sudden, it wasn't.

Max didn't know what to do. He was at a loss. Except that wasn't quite true. Actually he had known what to do the second Mr. Nikolopoulos had brought by the notice. Now he would do it. He couldn't take the local humiliation; he was too well-known, too well-respected to be known as "the guy who used to own the Max." There was only one option.

Max reached beneath his desk and brought out a small wooden case. He opened it up. There, sitting in plush velvet, was a handsome Beretta 92. Chambered for .40 S&W. A nice caliber. A nice bullet. It would get the job done. Poof, one shot, right through the temple—bye-bye, termination, bye-bye Max, bye-bye everything but the sweet nothingness of the void.

Max put the barrel to his head. "So long," he murmured. His finger was lightly pressing the trigger when he heard, as if from a great distance, one of the waitresses talking with another: "…yeah, it's those kids, the ones that never pay for anything."

Max froze.

Those kids.

Those kids! That interminable gang of six. The ones that never pay for anything.

Those kids!

That was it, Max realized—that was the money pit. Those kids. He suddenly realized, as if in a lightning flash, that all of his troubles could be traced as if on a perfect timeline to the arrival of those kids. They never paid for anything! The leader of the group, what was his name—Zack Morris—he regularly ran up tabs of $500 or more and then skipped out, leaving the copious amounts of food he ordered to rot. The beefcake, Slaber or Skaper or Slater, whatever his name was—he, too, never paid for his food, and he regularly inflicted serious property damage on the restaurant and refused to pay for it. The tall mouthy chick, Jessica—she had once pulled a miserable stint as a waitress and driven away a full fifth of his customer base. The Kapowski bitch brought down a miserably ruinous sexual harassment suit on the restaurant after she slept with the manager, Jeff. It was all becoming so clear.

Max's mouth fell open. "It was them all along," he muttered.

Suddenly he knew. He knew what he must do.

He got up from his chair, moving as if in a dreamlike state. Semi-conscious but moving with a perverse fluidity and purpose, Max checked the magazine of the Beretta. Good: fully loaded. He pushed past the waitresses, who took one look at the enormous gun and got the hell out of the restaurant by way of the back door.

Max burst into the main dining area. He never made a sound—not even a peep. There they were: those kids, guffawing, guzzling soda, grinding mud and filth onto the floor from their messy shoes, scaring everyone else out of the restaurant. Yes. This was the source of all his troubles, the wellspring of his financial and personal ruin. And now he knew the cure.

He raised the gun. All six of the brats saw him at the same time. All six of their mouths fell open. He heard the Powers boy shit his pants, loudly and abundantly. Morris immediately grabbed Kapowski and used her as a human shield. Slater burst into tears and began vomiting at the same time. The Spano bitch looked to be reaching for her mace keychain. Nevermind. It was too late.

Max fired. The first bullet took Lisa Turtle in the chest. She was dead before she hit the table. A fusillade of rounds took out Kapowski and the Slater jock; Morris was struck in the chest several times and spewed blood all over Powers, who had only a moment to utter a high-pitched "Zoinks!" before he, too, was hit with several rounds. Spano had grabbed her mace, but in her panic she accidentally sprayed herself in the face with it; she, too, was easily dispatched.

Only Morris was left—Morris, gasping for his life, covered in gore and ichor, reaching up a hand in a plaintive last gesture of futile hopelessness.

"No," Max said. He raised the gun and fired. Morris checked out.

As it turned out, the incident—referred to thereafter as the Maxaccre—actually redounded to Max's effort. It so happened that Max had actually signed up for a specialized form of disaster insurance—held in common by all local businesses due to the pervasive influence of Zack Morris in the local community—that happened to cover multiple homicides, even those committed by the proprietor. A technicality in local murder law, deftly exploited by Dick Belding's lawyer, saw Max get off with a two-month suspended prison sentence. Max was able to use the insurance money to pay off his debts, and once the dust settled, he found himself suddenly making money hand-over-fist again. The Max continued to prosper for years, and Max himself remained a pillar of the community, a respected and valued citizen by all who knew him.


End file.
